Davison's Doodle

Can we revive the melting pot?

Now that the modern Archie Bunker character has been elected President many are reviewing the game tape to learn and point fingers about failure.  It is ‘whitelash’ that elected the #BigotinChief?  Somewhat, but it is more than that I think.  Fear works on people no matter your skin color or religion or lack of religion.  Rational self interest is distorted into the most extreme ‘us and them’ on can imagine.  Our politics have been based in that for most of my lifetime.  The grand oratory of Kennedy has given way to Twitter rants.  Education looks more like an above ground oil storage facility of large and small silos between public schools, religious based schools, and the home schooled.  Trusted journalism is ideological too.  There is no Walter Cronkite figure, but there are plenty of characters and ways to reach them.

America has embraced the image of Mulligan Stew instead of melting pot. Confessionally, I like in a gated community that I’ve discovered is more diverse than I thought.  What my neighbors are realizing is that the gates invite people to climb over to see what is inside.  The sense of security is only psychological. When will reporters start following the money in politics and in the many conflict of interests that surround the President Elect and those that are filling out his cabinet.  In the end you can count on one thing: Donald J. Trump is only concerned with his brand, his bottom line and his, his, his.  As the video shows, he will say anything to create the mob that chants his name and increases his power.

How will the President Elect handle the mob when it really acts out having been given the license of mainstreamed White Nationalism and of the KKK. Is this how fascism begins?  The prosperity Gospel and ‘me and my Jesus’ theology helped elect Archie Bunker.  He will happily use evangelical white Christianity’s desire to reign like the Taliban did or does, while giving those same evangelicals the scapegoat to blame for their economic and self esteem problems.  They have tied themselves to the new Empire at their peril.  Christianity is not a minority voice in our country.  Evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity is well represented in our Congress and in my own State House.  Now, this group is empowered by a President Elect to really go to work on our culture because it benefits him and his bottom line. If is didn’t benefit Trump, he wouldn’t pay evangelicals any attention.  No, this is not a new reality, but it is a reality practiced by Trump with impunity.  The Republican Party is set up to reign for at least an election cycle at the federal level, but it could be longer if the notion of Mulligan Stew America is allowed to flourish.  In the States there is much more work to do.

I was at an event where Rev. Dr. William Barber spoke.  He spoke not of red and blue America, but of an America that has a moral conscious.  The working poor and middle class have more economic interest that are similar than they have pigment or religious differences.  We’ve got to dust off our Nation’s moral compass if we are to survive the 45th Presidency of these United States.  Maybe mules do kick the hardest near the end.  If that it true then we are in for some serious thrashing about.  The New York Times offers a couple of reads that I found helpful as I review the game tape and formulate a plan about my next steps.  They are worth a read.

The End of Identity Liberalism by Mark Lilla.

We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)  Click here to read more.

And

I am a Dangerous Professor by George Yancy.

Well, if it is dangerous to teach my students to love their neighbors, to think and rethink constructively and ethically about who their neighbors are, and how they have been taught to see themselves as disconnected and neoliberal subjects, then, yes, I am dangerous, and what I teach is dangerous.  Click here to read more.